Bloody Mary: World's Most Complex Cocktail

The Bloody Mary, that proud mix of tomato juice, vodka and a potential spice drawer's worth of ingredients, may be the most complex cocktail in the world -- at least from a chemical standpoint. That's why, after tackling the chemistry of coffee, tea, fruit juices, soda pop, beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages, the tipplers at the American Chemical Society  (ACS) took on the task of analyzing the Bloody Mary. Either that, or they wanted an excuse to start happy hour early. (It's the International Year of Chemistry. Bottoms up!)
"It's a very complicated drink," said Neil C. Da Costa, Ph.D., presenting the results of the ACS' 241st National Meeting & Exposition. "The Bloody Mary has been called the world's most complex cocktail, and from the standpoint of flavor chemistry, you've got a blend of hundreds of flavor compounds that act on the taste senses. It covers almost the entire range of human taste sensations -- sweet, salty, sour and umami or savory -- but not bitter."


What did their months of grueling research, conducted Mondays through Fridays between the hours of 5 and 7 p.m., reveal?
-- Use cheap vodka. Intense spices mask the vodka's flavor, so using premium vodka makes little sense.
-- Splurge on the juice. Use high quality tomato juice that has a deep, rich flavor. (That's what we love about the Bllody Mary at Vü.)
-- Make it fresh. Chemically, the Bloody Mary is a "highly unstable" concoction, and the quality deteriorates quickly.
-- Ice it up. Serving Bloody Marys on ice helps to slow down the chemical reactions involving acids in tomato juice and other ingredients that degrade the taste.
-- Mind your mixes. If you use a cocktail mix, add fresh ingredients to enhance the flavor and aroma.
Remember, "chem is try" and, sometimes, you have to try (again and again and again). Or you can just follow Lou Amdur's Bloody Mary recipe.
Source

Edible International Flags Served on a Plate

As every year, Sydney will host this autumn the Crave Sydney International Food Festival where hundreds of chefs will come to prepare some most exotic foods from all over the world. The festival is scheduled to begin on October 2 with Barbecue Madness event and it will last about one month. The organizers of this festival have got an idea to create flags of every country, which are going to have their representatives on this festival, from food. So, here you can see some of the flags of attendants and I have to admit that those flags never looked so delicious to me like today, More images after the break..

Sausage-Making Process From The Inside

Those are piglets. They are heated by infra-red lamps so that they feel comfortable and their physical state improves

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Want to have a look how our favorite delicatessens are made? Welcome to go on an excursion along a slaughterhouse and a sausage factory.

For the first days of their lives piglets live under their mother’s care.

Their everyday life is food and sleep.

Dwelling of the adult pigs. Automatic water and feeder supply allows to reduce the man’s role in pig breeding.

“Road to death”. This is the doomed path to the putting away procedure.

With the help of special equipment the man puts the connections to a pig’s neck and puts the animal away with the help of electrical discharge.

The carcasses go to the butchering room where the very butchery is performed according to a standard scheme.

The chest gets sawed to take out the intestines later on.

With the help of such steel hooks the carcasses are moved along the slaughterhouse.

Hair remains are removed with the help of burning.

All unnecessary is taken out from the half-carcasses.

And they move to the refrigeration chamber.

There are 500 carcasses inside.

The heads are stored like this.

The carcasses then move to the very butchering room where the meat is separated from the bones.

With the help of a colossal meat chopper the meat get minced.

Containers with minced meat which are going to be delivered to various workshops.

Sausages are made here.

Jellous minced meat right before becoming part of sausage.

Pretty small sausages.

Special smoking cameras.

In this room 20 women make 50 000 meat dumplings in 24 hours.

Special devices for preparing delicacies.

The technologists mix meat with spices to get the proper taste and odour.

Process of sausage preparing.

These things are going to be sent to the smoking chambers.

Another type of sausage.

Products are packed with pumping in a so-called “protective atmosphere” – a special gas increasing period of storage.

Vacuumizing machine.

Storehouse with thousands of sticks waiting to be sent off to the grocery stores and supermarkets.

via leprosorium

Nyotaimori: Serving Sushi on Naked Bodies

Sushi - the popular Japanese dish of vinegared rice and fish is served, like any other dishes, on plates. Occasionally, these sushi dinners are also served on the naked body of a woman – a traditional Japanese practice called Nyotaimori or body sushi. When sushi is served on a male model it is called Nantaimori.


Promoters and eating participants often say that Nyotaimori is a form of art, but die hard feminists are outraged by the practice. Nyotaimori is well accepted in Japan. Tokyo is famous for this type of dinner theatre, but Nyotaimori is hard to find in other places of the world. The phenomenon is however spreading to the U.S., U.K and Germany. More recently it has evolved into a trendy fad in certain major cities in Europe.

Before becoming a living sushi platter, the person is trained to lie down for hours without moving. She or he must also be able to withstand the prolonged exposure to the cold food. Body hair, including pubic hair, would also be shaved, as a display of pubic hair may be seen as a sexual act. Before service, the individual would take a bath using a special fragrance-free soap and then finish off with a splash of cold water to cool the body down somewhat for the sushi.

In some parts of the world, in order to comply with sanitation laws, there must be a layer of plastic or other material between the sushi and the body of the woman or man. Wrapping a naked person in cling film may also be regarded as a form of fetishism.

Despite the erotic nature of the practice, a visit to body sushi restaurant is nothing like a trip to a strip club. It is essential to respect the models and it is strictly prohibited to touch them inappropriately, whether they are male or female.